Policy Support Officer

Description:

Policy Support Officer

Salary and grade: £30,796-£36,032 from April 2024, Grade 4
Duration of role: Permanent
Hours per week: 37 (Full time)
Location: The designated office base is Abbey House, Abingdon. The councils operate in a truly flexible and hybrid way where the focus is on outcomes, not where you work.

Closing date: 22 April 2024

About the role and what we’re looking for:

The Insight and Policy Team is a successful, ambitious, and growing hub of expertise which supports South Oxfordshire and the Vale of White Horse to thrive by:

• articulating our councils’ ambitions
• providing engaging insights which drives evidence-based decision making
• brokering insights, evidence, and ideas into, and out of, the organisation including responding to consultations

Some recent examples of what this work means in practice include securing multi-million pound funding to decarbonise our leisure centres, forecasting potential housing need arising from the Homes for Ukraine programme, using Census data to update understanding of community needs, and writing the Corporate Plan.

Our Corporate Policy Officers are a critical role in the team, reporting directly to the team leader. Together with a data analyst, researcher and a support officer we will deliver our ambitions to the highest quality possible, often on a tight turn-around. This work involves a wide range of skills and backgrounds but above all we are looking for people who are skilled at building relationships, presenting complicated ideas simply, bringing a positive attitude to change and managing competing demands. If you are committed to high quality work, and are ready for an exciting new challenge, this could be the role for you.

Main duties and responsibilities:

• To provide support for the councils’ project teams and secure smooth running of the projects’ administration, providing high level administrative support to the teams and on particular tasks within the project from project initiation to delivery.
• Assist with maintaining project plans, ensuring actions are completed to deadlines and reporting effectively through the appropriate governance structure.
• Monitor and report on timelines and deadlines for projects.
• Track the delivery of projects against a range of indicators as a basis for assessing project effectiveness.
• Maintain, collate and analyse data, accurately to support project milestones, using relevant software.
• Organise meetings between a range of services and partners, which may be complex and require careful negotiation.
• To administer meetings, prepare papers (some of which may be sensitive and confidential), create action logs and chase actions as required.
• To prioritise varied workload and complete various projects/tasks to meet appropriate deadlines.
• Maintain the highest level of confidentiality, discretion and professionalism.
• Access and utilise relevant data to support the project work.
• Liaise with other partners as appropriate.
• Carry out any other duties appropriate to the grading of the post.

The duties may vary from time to time without changing the nature of the post or the level of responsibility and the post holder may also be required to carry out any other duties appropriate to the grading of the post.

About you

• Excellent time management skills, well organised
• Excellent communication skills (spoken, written and use of a range of IT software)

Your essential qualifications

• Educated to at least A level standard or equivalent
• Capability and willingness to work occasional evenings and weekends

If you have the following experiences or qualification - it’s a bonus:

• Have an interest in the Insight and Policy team’s area of work
• Experience of project management and partnership working
• Experience of working in multi-disciplinary local authority

The benefits we offer

• A basic 25 days annual leave per annum, rising to 30 days after five years. You also have all the bank holidays to look forward to and time off between Christmas and New Year.
• Flexible working and annualised hours – a flexible approach to work that our employees love!
• Salary pay awards – most jobs give scope for a pay increase after six months or the following April (depending on your start date) and we also review salaries each April.
• A generous career average pension scheme which includes life insurance of three times your salary.
• The opportunity to purchase a bike through Cyclescheme (cheaper than directly through a store) so that you can cycle to work!
• Various schemes to keep you healthy (reduced gym membership, free swims, free eye tests for DSE users and more).
• We give you two days per year to volunteer within the local community.
• A range of resources, support, and activities to help you maintain your wellbeing including a monthly wellbeing hour in addition to annualised hours (the ability to work flexibly as long as, over the course of the year, you complete your contracted hours) and annual leave.

You may have experience in the following: Policy Support Officer, Policy Administrator, Policy Assistant, Policy Coordinator, Project Support Officer, Project Administrator, Project Assistant, Project Coordinator, Research Support Officer, Research Assistant, Research Coordinator, Administrative Support Officer, Administrative Assistant, etc.

REF-(Apply online only)